Reflections: Our inheritance of love

If you haven’t caught on yet, one of the assumptions behind everything I write is that we are immensely blessed by gifts we have inherited or been given – especially by God and our human forbears. 

We are not self-made people, but incredibly favoured and fortunate heirs of immense spiritual, emotional, physical, economic, intellectual wealth. Unfortunately it is all too easy to live our lives oblivious to the good luck of our inheritance.

Among our inheritances there is no greater gift than the gift of love.

Pause for a moment and ponder some of the ways you have been blessed by love in its various manifestations. The parents and grandparents who welcomed you into the world with hugs and kisses and fed you and changed your diapers. The siblings and cousins and kids you played with. 

Your extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. The folks at church or at the local store where you went to buy candy. School teachers and coaches who loved you and encouraged you. Friends. Boyfriends or girlfriends.

These are the obvious manifestations of love most of us are blessed by. My condolences to those reading this who remember your early years less warmly – I am very sorry if the people who were supposed to love and care for you didn’t do that very well, and especially if they used their positions of trust to harm or abuse you.

There are nevertheless ways in which all of us are blessed by love that go way beyond the particulars of individual experience. We live in a culture – the “west” – which understands love as an integral foundation and a core value.

At its most basic this is illustrated by our fervent belief that all people are created equal, deserve to be treated equally and have the same human rights. In real life this means we believe every individual – every child, youth, adult and senior – deserves to be loved and cared for. No one is expendable. Slavery and abuse of others is unthinkable. The killing of another is to be avoided as much as possible, and even then is always a tragedy. We are generally in agreement that we are to love and care for people, not abuse and harm them.

The roots of this understanding of human life come from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. While there is much violence and hatred in the Bible, the basic message that endured and ultimately prevailed over the ages and especially in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament is love.

It began when God created humankind: “So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) And when God finished His creation we are told “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

These few words make all the difference in the world in terms of how we understand life. This is why the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and by extension our Western civilization, understand that creation is the very positive result of the purposeful creative actions of a benevolent, good Creator. Creation is not the random, capricious result of a power struggle between gods, but the planned, orderly, intentional expression of a great intelligence determined to create a universe of beauty and love.

Also these few words are why our civilization came to our understanding that all people and genders are equal and deserve equal treatment in all things. Each and every person, regardless of their age or gender or intelligence or ethnicity is created in the image of the Creator. Again, of course, the West has often failed in implementing this understanding. But slowly and surely we have gotten better such that there are no cultures in history which have upheld human dignity and rights with as much consistency as we have.

God did more than just create us in His image – He deemed us to be worthy and deserving of being loved. The Bible speaks eloquently of God as being primarily a God of Love. As such He showers human beings with love: “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love … the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.” (Psalm 103:8, 17) “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued My faithfulness to you.” (Jeremiah 31:3) 

It was because of His love for humans that God sent Jesus to earth: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) And for those who believe in the love of God, the calling is to love people as God does: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (I John 4:7-8)

In closing I would suggest that there is no other religion which understands the purposes of creation and life to be the expression of the love of a personal, loving Creator God, and which subsequently invites us to orient our values and behaviours to be a likewise expression of love. And while our western culture has often failed at engendering this positive ethos, on the whole it has done far better than any other civilization at implementing love and care for all people as the integral foundation and core value of our common life. 

We have a precious inheritance to be grateful for, and to protect and nurture and pass on to our children and our children’s children.